Contingencies Fund (No. 2) Bill

Anthony Browne Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 11th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I welcome the Opposition’s interest in this motion. It is incredibly important. I particularly welcome their conversion to the importance of value for money. It is the Conservative party that has always been the party that realises that we are just guardians of public money. It is not the Government’s money. It is taxpayers’ money and we should treat it as carefully as if it were our own.

I arrived at City Hall after Ken Livingston was there and when the current Prime Minister was Mayor of London. We went through the accounts and were absolutely shocked at the staff’s attitude towards money—it was just there to be shovelled out the door. We imposed a very strict control regime, which dramatically reduced costs and improved value for money. If Labour Members want to learn more about value for money, I would welcome them to the Conservative Benches, so that we could discuss it.

This whole debate reminds me slightly of discussions that I have often had with environmental activists about nuclear power. They come out with lots of arguments against nuclear power. One by one, those arguments are knocked back. Finally they say, “Well, it costs too much.” When they resort to that argument, we realise that they have lost the argument. The reason the Labour party is focusing so much on value for money is, I fear, not because it has converted to this cause, but because there are no other lines of attack for it to follow.

If we look at the progress of this pandemic since it started, we will see that, at the very beginning, we were really worried about not having enough ventilators. We now have 22,000 ventilators. We have far more ventilators than we need at the moment. Then there was the personal protective equipment crisis—remember that? There was shock, questions and attacks the whole time from the Opposition, who were saying that we did not have enough PPE and asking why we did not have it in stock. Actually, we only made 1% of the PPE in this country. We did not have manufacturers that we could turn to and say, “Can you ramp up supply?” There was a global shortage. We now have, as my hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Saqib Bhatti) said, 32 billion parts of PPE in stock and 70% of it is made in this country. There is no line of attack that the Labour party can make on PPE.

Then we come to vaccination. The Labour party previously made many attacks on vaccination. What can I say? We all know, everyone knows, the voting public know that it is a great success. It is an absolute triumph and truly world leading, as is so well documented, thanks mainly to many teams across the NHS and the public sector, but also to the vaccine taskforce led by Kate Bingham.

The Labour party has raised test and trace because of the Public Accounts Committee report yesterday. The report said many things. It did not say that 80% of the cost of test and trace is on the testing. On the testing, we are very much a world leader. I was looking at the figures for the G20 countries—the 20 main countries in the world—and we are doing twice as much testing as any other G20 country in the world. According to Our World in Data, we are doing 10.54 tests per 1,000 people a day in the United Kingdom. The next highest in the G7 is Italy, at 5.2. We are doing four times as much as Germany, and three times as much as Canada. We are truly world-leading in testing and that costs money. It also means that all the children can go back to school. We did 1.5 million tests on the day that they went back to school. It is only because we can do the testing and the tracing that follows that children can go back to school to regain their education and we can slowly return to normality.

All these are great successes and the Labour party should welcome them. The British public can see it: we can see the mood of the nation changing and, fingers crossed, that will continue. However, we are still in the middle of the pandemic. It is not over yet. It is too soon to take the hands off the brakes and say, “Let’s roll down.” Things could go the wrong way and it is absolutely right that the Government continue with their contingency policy, with 12% of supply, in case other things flare up. This is not about spending more money. It is about giving us the ability to spend money should it be needed and I fully welcome it.

Exiting the European Union (Excise)

Anthony Browne Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con) [V]]

I very much welcome these three measures on duty-free changes and travellers’ allowances.

First, on the return of duty-free, when, a few years ago, I was asked by The Sun newspaper to come up with some ideas for any possible benefits of Brexit, the return of duty-free was one of them, and it got widespread acclaim at the time. I mentioned the huge national groan 20 years ago when it was abolished. Tony Blair tried to stop it being scrapped but failed because of single market rules. I declare an interest as someone who has used it when I visited friends and family around the EU and would buy a bottle of duty-free whisky on the way out. It is a tax break that may not be that economically efficient on traditional measures, but is really popular and great fun. It is a tax break for the many, not the few. The Treasury should use not a benefit-cost ratio, as it normally does, but a fun-cost ratio. It is very popular with the public. As we have heard, booze cruises will be returning when we are allowed to have them. I think that will be welcomed up and down the nation, as well as in regional airports, which will benefit massively.

Secondly, on the quadrupling of the alcohol allowance, I, for one, thought the old allowances were quite mean with just one case of wine, so I certainly welcome having two cases. I think most of the British public would also welcome that. As somebody who is favour of free trade, low tariffs and low allowances, I absolutely support a move in that direction.

Thirdly, on the retail export scheme, which is the most controversial issue and the reason the SNP is opposing these measures, I support abolishing for two reasons: first, it is not good value; and secondly, it is not fair. Basically, it is a tax break for wealthy foreigners coming to do shopping for high-value goods in the UK, but it is not good value because it is actually not that widely used. Fewer than 10% of non-EU visitors currently use it. There is a good reason for that: the fees for using it charged by the shops’ administrators are so high that often 70% of the refund ends up going to them. It is not surprising, therefore, that the shops’ administrators have launched a rearguard action to try to stop its abolition. Because it is used so limitedly, it reduces travel costs by only about 6%, and that is not enough to make the difference for most people as to whether they will travel or not travel to buy something. Indeed, research by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has shown that two thirds of visitors would have bought the goods anyway.

There is also—this has not been mentioned by SNP and Labour Members—the opportunity cost. The Government have to either extend the scheme to the whole EU or abolish it outright. Keeping it would cost the Government £1.4 billion. That is £1.4 billion the Government could do other things with. There are far better ways to save jobs, create jobs, help the high street and help retail than to give a tax break to wealthy tourists buying high-value goods. For example, the Government are currently looking at the reform of business rates—a key issue for high streets up and down the country—and £1.4 billion could go a very long way towards helping all shops, not just a few that specialise in this one area. Lots of different things could be done with £1.4 billion. It really is a huge sum of money, and giving tax breaks like this is not an efficient way of using it; we can do far more good with it in other ways.

Secondly, as I said, I do not support the scheme because it is not fair. It has always struck me as quite bizarre that wealthy visitors coming to Scotland to buy jewellery or coats, or coming to central London to buy computers, do not have to pay tax while British people buying the same goods do have to pay it. Why should wealthy travellers get a 20% tax break? They are using the resources and infrastructure in the UK just as much as anyone else. If I go to some other country, I certainly do not expect tax breaks on buying expensive goods there. I think it is inexplicable to most British people that the taxes they have to pay are used to subsidise such tax breaks. It is particularly ironic that the Scottish National party and Labour are opposed to this. They are meant to be the parties of tax breaks for the many, not the few; here, they have become the parties of tax breaks for the few wealthy people. For all those reasons, I totally support the scrapping of the retail export scheme.

Economic Update

Anthony Browne Excerpts

Monday 11th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

The hon. Lady’s party called specifically for that money to be used to support small businesses and high streets; indeed, not only have we just done that but we have done it to the tune of £4.5 billion, not the £2 billion that her party was calling for.

[Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con) [V]]

Green finance has a crucial role to play if we want to build back better and transition to a net zero economy by 2050. The UK has a critical role in the development of the sector internationally, not just as a global leader in finance but with this year’s presidency of COP26 and chairmanship of the G7. Will the Chancellor outline for the House what he is doing to develop the vital green finance sector?

[Rishi Sunak]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point: not only are we leading in the world in reaching our net zero targets but we are a global financial centre, and we have combined the two to lead the greening of the financial system, which is an opportunity for us. We are going to issue a sovereign green bond this year and will be the first major economy to make mandatory the climate-related financial disclosures recommended by the international taskforce, which will help to cement our global leadership. I look forward to hearing from my hon. Friend the other things that we can do in this vital year for our journey to net zero.

Taxation (Post-transition Period) (Ways and Means)

Anthony Browne Excerpts

Ways and Means resolution & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Tuesday 8th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Bridget Phillipson]

I look forward to seeing in detail what the Government intend to bring forward on our future trading relationship, as that will determine so much around what our businesses will need for years into the future. I believe that our country is a great place to do business. I want all our businesses to succeed into the future. That is why it is so important that we see a good deal for our country, and that the Government use the time they still have available to them well. They have not done so yet. I look forward to hearing more from the Minister later about exactly what the Government intend to set out in this legislation, because he has not really offered a great deal so far this afternoon.

The Government’s irresponsibility has not been limited to inaction and incompetence in the face of a ticking clock. There is also the greater irresponsibility that we have seen in recent months—an irresponsibility of which I fear the consequences may last for generations—and that is the irresponsibility with which this Government have made it clear that they are prepared to break international law. The world will not forget that just weeks ago the Government introduced legislation to tear up an international agreement that was signed less than a year ago. We welcome the fact that they now propose to withdraw those measures, but we fear that the damage has been done. The Government threatened to break the law to get their own way. What message does that send to Britain’s friends and allies with whom we have signed that agreement, with whom we have other agreements and with whom we hope to conclude future agreements?

[Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

You talked about the notwithstanding clauses as irresponsible and said that the damage may have been done, but would you like to join me in welcoming the Government reaching an agreement in the Joint Committee, as was announced just a couple of hours ago, on the issues that those clauses were intended to address?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. Just a gentle reminder not to use the word “you” to the shadow Minister, because “you” means me.

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[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure, I guess, to follow the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash). He was talking about 1688; I think we travelled there in real time, but I thank him very much for the comments that he made.

This time last year, we were all in the throes of a slightly surreal Christmas general election, pounding the streets and chapping the doors in the freezing cold, listening carefully to the concerns of our constituents. My constituents were deeply concerned about the state the UK was in, and they remain concerned today.

It is difficult to believe that we are a full year on since the Conservative party won a majority in this place with promises of a Brexit deal that was “oven ready”. I say it is difficult to believe because we are now just a couple of weeks from the end of the transition period and there still is not anything of substance in the oven. I am not even convinced, actually, that the Government have an oven. The only thing the Prime Minister has driven a bulldozer through lately is his own reputation, treating these negotiations as a game and continuing to pursue a no-deal Brexit in the middle of a global pandemic as households and businesses in this country struggle with the second wave of covid-19.

[Anthony Browne]

I wonder whether the hon. Member would like to join me in making it clear to the British public that the phrase “oven ready” was used about the withdrawal agreement, which we did indeed vote into law one week after the general election, not about the trade deal. The Prime Minister never described the trade deal as “oven ready”. Would the hon. Member like to join me in making it clear to the British public that that is the case?

[Alison Thewliss]

It is very difficult to understand anything that the Prime Minister says because he swivels around on just about everything that he has ever said. He had two positions on whether we should leave the EU, so who knows whether he has an oven-ready deal, an oven or even a microwave? Who can really tell? It is quite difficult to establish that. Perhaps, Madam Deputy Speaker, we could have a TV mounted in the Chamber somewhere showing BBC live news so that we can keep track of what is happening in the negotiations, as the new Brexit countdown calculator they have in the corner ticks away.

It is no secret that these negotiations have been difficult and that the UK Government have not helped themselves as we have gone through them. The UK’s leaving the EU, because of the attitude that the UK has taken, was always going to be the messiest of messy divorces, but the Government have done absolutely no favours in the way they have approached things.

The hon. Member for Stone talked for 21 minutes, I think, about things that he could not see in terms of the Bill that is supposed to be being brought forward tomorrow. The Minister said from the Dispatch Box that he was no better sighted on where things are at with the negotiations than the hon. Member for Stone, who also regards this whole situation as extraordinary. The Minister says that this is going to be debated in the normal way, but there is nothing normal about this situation here today. We go to the Public Bill Office and ask it for advice on what is in the Bill and it does not know; we ask the Library what is in the Bill and it does not know. None of this is their fault; it is the Government’s fault that we do not know what is in this Bill. It is an absolute farce.

These six resolutions and this phantom Bill are a prime example of the procedural chaos that has dominated the Government’s handling of Brexit. Before the taxation Bill has even been published, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster says he

“will keep under review the content”

relating to the Northern Ireland protocol. Yesterday, a statement from 10 Downing Street stated:

“Good progress continues to be made regarding the decision as to which goods are ‘at risk’ of entering the EU market. Talks continue this afternoon. In the light of those discussions, the government will keep under review the content of the forthcoming Taxation Bill.”

At 1.16 this afternoon, we had a tweet from Maroš Šefčovič, one of the negotiators, but we still do not know the implications of today’s announcement and it is very difficult to see exactly what is going to happen. The joint statement talks about determining the criteria for goods to be considered not “at risk” of entering the EU, but we do not know what that means. It mentions an agreement in principle, but the Government have not been very principled in the way they have approached anything. How the EU can trust them I do not know.

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[Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

It is a great honour to speak after my right hon. Friend the Member for Wokingham (John Redwood) and hear his impassioned plea for a vision about life in Britain after Brexit. Let me say one thing on that. In my one year here in Parliament, I have spent a lot of time working on different bits of legislation about what life will be like after Brexit. For example, the Environment Bill sets out a whole new framework, one far more ambitious than the EU’s, to preserve the environment, and the Agriculture Bill removes the totally discredited common agricultural policy, which I would like to see any Opposition Members support, and replaces it with a new regime in the UK that is fit for purpose.

I am the proud product of the EU and its internal market; I am half Norwegian, part Irish, part French, with extended family in Italy and Denmark. I have also been engaged in European politics for about 20 years. I was Europe correspondent for The Times, living in Brussels for three years. I was in charge of all the EU funding in London during the Prime Minister’s first term as Mayor of London. As chief executive of the British Bankers’ Association, I led all the negotiations for Britain’s biggest export industry in the European Commission, Council and Parliament, with meetings up to and including Jean-Claude Juncker. So I have had a ringside seat at many European negotiations, and we all know that they are part showmanship, part brinkmanship. Everything is always left to the last minute, and for a very good reason—this picks up on the point made by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson)—which is that we are negotiating with 27 different countries and they all have differing interests. A lot of them have a vested interest in trying to leave everything to the very last moment. I have sat through many Council meetings and summits where things went to not just to one minute to midnight, but several hours past it.

[Alan Brown]

Earlier, the hon. Gentleman tried to do the whole “oven-ready deal was to do with the withdrawal agreement”, which we know is a fudge. If this is so complicated, as he highlights just now, with 27 other countries involved, what does he say about the former International Trade Secretary, the right hon. Member for North Somerset (Dr Fox), who said that a free trade agreement with the EU would be the “easiest in human history”? How does the hon. Gentleman conflate or twist that?

[Anthony Browne]

I never thought that it would be a really easy negotiation. It was clearly going to be complicated, and the Government have been negotiating in good faith.

Another thing I have noticed from EU negotiations is that there are many different negotiations happening in parallel, and virtually no one knows what is going on. In fact, no one really knows what is going on apart from the people in the negotiating room, and often the people in the negotiating room do not know what is going on, because there is some ambush being plotted somewhere else that then slips into the negotiations. We have to trust our negotiating team. They are the only ones with the insight and knowledge of what is going on to be able to make judgments about when an issue should be pushed, when to play hard ball and when to turn up the charm.

That brings me back to the “notwithstanding” clauses. I strongly welcome the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster announcing this agreement on all the Joint Committee issues with the European Commission. That protects the Good Friday agreement and the Northern Ireland protocol, and it will protect peace in Northern Ireland.

Those “notwithstanding” clauses were needed only in case the Joint Committee did not reach agreement. It has reached agreement, and therefore those clauses are not needed. The hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South said that the damage is done, but it is not. Often in negotiations, we need to play hard ball to get an agreement. It is entirely plausible that if we had not had those clauses, this agreement would not have been reached. We have that agreement, and the whole House should welcome it.

But it’s not all over till it’s over. We do not have the trade deal yet. There are still negotiations going on. I hope that we do get a trade deal, as I think the whole House does; very few people do not want that. It is very much in both sides’ interests that we get an agreement. It is in President Macron’s interest as well. I would not like to see him have to tell his entire fishing industry that it is about to lose 100% of its access to British fishing waters. Until we have a trade deal, the Government have to negotiate for all the different scenarios of having or not having a trade deal. We do not have to legislate for the Joint Committee not reaching an agreement, because it has done so. Therefore, we do not need those “notwithstanding” clauses in the Bill.

The Government have an absolute duty to ensure the integrity of the UK and its internal market and to do everything they can to ensure as much continuity as possible for businesses affected by this. The Government have an absolute obligation to the people of Northern Ireland—I speak as someone with a lot of family in Northern Ireland—to ensure that they have unfettered access to the UK in all circumstances. There must be no tariffs on goods from Northern Ireland to GB or GB to Northern Ireland, so long as those goods are consumed in the UK.

I welcome the agreement on the Northern Ireland border, which is be welcomed, but there is still the possibility of a no-deal scenario, and there might therefore be tariffs. It would be a dereliction of the Government’s duty if they did not legislate to have a tariff regime in Northern Ireland, which is what the Bill does.

The Government have a duty to ensure as much continuity as possible for businesses. The Bill ensures continuity of administration for VAT and excise duty in Northern Ireland, so that businesses in Northern Ireland know that they will still be part of the VAT and excise duty regime in the UK.

[Alan Brown]

The details of the Bill have not been made clear, so I am not sure how it provides the certainty that the hon. Member is talking about.

[Anthony Browne]

We have been given enough information so far to know the general principles of the Bill, but we are discussing a Ways and Means motion. The Bill will be published after this, in time for Second Reading.

There are two provisions on tax evasion in the Bill that are very welcome. The first is on ensuring that VAT is paid on goods bought online from overseas. We all know the scenario, and I am sure we have all done it: we order goods online from overseas and they are delivered through the post. The VAT payment is not made in the UK—it is often made overseas—or often not made at all. That mattered less when we were part of the EU, because we had an agreement with the EU under which VAT was charged. Following Brexit, it is even more important that we have a system where there is proper, robust payment of VAT. This is really important for high streets in Britain. The high streets in my constituency have really suffered from the coronavirus closures and lockdowns and from people moving to e-commerce. More than ever, we need a level playing field between the high streets and e-commerce, so I fully support that provision.

The second tax evasion provision is on the insurance premium tax. Again, this was less of an issue when we were in the EU. It is about whether somebody who buys insurance from other countries pays the insurance premium tax that insurance companies in the UK are required to pay. We had an assistance agreement with the EU to ensure that EU insurance companies paid that insurance premium tax. At the end of the transition period, that comes to an end, and this provision fills that gap, so I very much welcome it. This Bill is absolutely necessary. It would be a dereliction of the Government’s duty to ensure the integrity of the UK if we did not pass it, and I fully commend it.

Spending Review 2020 and OBR Forecast

Anthony Browne Excerpts

Wednesday 25th November 2020 Commons Chamber

[Rishi Sunak]

I do not believe that we are behind France and Germany. We are phasing out internal combustion engine vehicles 10 years before France, and we are phasing out coal 13 years before Germany. Indeed, the Prime Minister’s 10-point plan will support up to a quarter of a million green jobs, building on the progress that we have made by being the country that has decarbonised the fastest out of all major economies.

[Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

My constituency is home to the global headquarters of AstraZeneca, the private sector company that has committed to producing, on a not-for-profit basis, the so-called Oxford vaccine—not just for the British population, but for developing countries around the world. It is doing that through Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, of which the UK, as the Chancellor said earlier, is the biggest financial supporter. The coronavirus pandemic is the biggest crisis facing the world, and the UK is in a leading position in tackling it. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that, as a result of the spending review, the UK will continue to be able to play that leading role against the pandemic?

[Rishi Sunak]

I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. He highlights a perfect example of this country making an enormous difference to millions of people around the world, not just with our aid budget but through the quality of our research and then our desire to find commercial partners who will bring that life-saving treatment to millions of people at cost. It is a fantastic example, and my hon. Friend is right to highlight it.

Support for Self-employed and Freelance Workers

Anthony Browne Excerpts

Thursday 17th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I absolutely agree. The people we are talking about are in every sector of our economy and our society, and they are hurting.

Back in June, the Treasury Committee published a unanimous report called “Gaps in support” as part of the inquiry into the economic impact of coronavirus. It found that hundreds of thousands of self-employed people are suffering hardship because of features like the disqualification of anyone who started a business in the last year. The Select Committee made some clear practical recommendations for change. I agree with the Chair of the Committee, the right hon. Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride), that urgently enacting those recommendations and helping those who have fallen through the gaps is the only way for the Government to, as he puts it, fairly and

“completely fulfil its promise to do whatever it takes”.

Sadly, the Government’s response to the “Gaps in support” report was predictable: they made excuses and cited obstacles, when what we need is action. So let me say just a little more about some of those who are falling through the gaps. I mentioned small limited companies whose directors take all or part of their income in dividends. I want to stress that that is common practice; there is nothing suspicious about doing that—it is what people do when they are starting up small businesses, and they plough that money back into those businesses in the early days.

[Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

How is Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs meant to know where the dividend income comes from, because when people fill in their tax return, they do not have to say the source of it? It could be dividend income from massive stock market investments, and why should they get subsidised for that?

[Caroline Lucas]

A whole range of practical proposals has been set out by the Treasury Committee, ExcludedUK and many others documenting the other paperwork that could be presented, including records from tax returns and so forth, that can make sure that this scheme is not open to fraud. If the political will is there, a way can be found using a range of different documentation to demonstrate that the money that people are applying for is absolutely legitimate. We can look at bank statements, for instance. It is not beyond the wit of people to make sure that people in our constituencies are not literally having to go to food banks, as an hon. Member mentioned the other day, in order to be able to put food on the table.

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[Caroline Lucas]

The hon. Lady is exactly right. Just a first step will be for the Government to acknowledge that there is a problem. Instead of sticking their fingers in their ears and going, “La, la, la”, they need to accept there is a problem here, and I am sure if we all got around the table we could find a way through this.

The vast majority of those small limited companies do not have commercial premises either, so they do not qualify for business grants. Nor do they see taking on large debts in such an uncertain business landscape as a realistic option. Furlough has been a Catch-22 for company directors: unpredictable cash flow means their salaries are low, so the scheme does not cover living expenses, yet if they furlough they are not allowed to work on saving the businesses that are in question.

The scheme has also routinely excluded carers and parent. As part of its inquiry into the impact of covid-19 on maternity and parental leave, the Petitions Committee heard evidence from the brilliant campaigning group, Pregnant Then Screwed. It was told that, because the self-employed scheme fails to properly accommodate women who incur a loss of earnings when taking time off for maternity leave, the gender pay gap among the self-employed, which is already at 43%, will increase, as will the likelihood of women’s businesses failing due to a lack of financial support.

[Anthony Browne]

The hon. Member is absolutely right that people furloughed generally are not allowed to work. But there is an exemption that the Government brought in for company directors who are furloughed—they are allowed to carry on with their company director duties, including saving their business.

[Caroline Lucas]

If they do not have any money, they cannot save their business, can they? That seems an odd intervention to make.

The Petitions Committee urged the Government to amend the scheme to take into account periods of maternity and paternal leave to ensure fairness and equality, yet, once again, Ministers have deliberately looked the other way. That phrase “whatever it takes” apparently does not stretch to ending discrimination against self-employed women. Nor do they care very much about freelancers, especially those on short-term PAYE contracts, as is now common practice because of HMRC requirements. They are caught between a rock and a hard place: denied access to the job retention scheme and the chance to be furloughed, yet often not earning enough from self-employment to qualify for the self-employed scheme.

In some sectors of our economy, freelance working is especially common. In my own Brighton constituency, for example, a number of people work in the arts. Three in four jobs in the arts across the country are freelance. They are the people who make the plays, the musicals and live experiences that are a part of the fabric of British life. We do not always see what they do, but they are invaluable, yet one in three of the skills base in theatre, for example, have missed out on any Government support since March, with disabled people, people of colour and early career workers disproportionately affected. Young people are also over-represented compared with other sectors of the economy. Therefore, rather than recovery, we see a sector that is facing total collapse.

Failure adequately to support the cultural, creative and events industries has put at risk 16,000 jobs across Brighton and Hove and £1.5 billion in turnover. My inbox, like, I am sure, the inboxes of many other hon. Members, is full of emails from constituents forced to abandon long-standing careers in the arts because there is no income support for them as freelancers.

Many working in media and journalism are similarly struggling, as the National Union of Journalists has evidenced, with its members routinely treated as employees for tax purposes, yet not eligible for furlough and not afforded the same protections and rights as staff when it comes to employment law.

Another group of people hard hit is those who choose to combine self-employment with PAYE income. I have a number of constituents in that situation, often as a result of being midway through making the transition to running their own company and being wholly self-employed.

None of this is inevitable. All of it is the result of a conscious choice by the Government to abandon anywhere between 3 million and 6 million self-employed people and freelancers. As the current self-employed scheme winds down, now is the time to change tack and do the right thing by these people. The details of a more inclusive scheme have been set out by the campaign groups and by the Treasury Committee. The ForgottenLtd group published a rescue package. Backed by the Federation of Small Businesses and other business groups, it sent it to the Treasury over a month ago, and it is still waiting for a response.

I appreciate how much other people need and want to speak, so let me quickly, in my last few minutes, outline three things that can be done. First, we can retrospectively expand the self-employed scheme. Bring those people who have been excluded from it into its ambit and make it fair by retrospectively starting it from 1 March to give it parity with the furlough scheme.

Secondly, as well as looking back, we need to look forward, so the Government should immediately extend the duration to the many sectors where the self-employed are a significant part of the workforce and which will not be back to anything like normal for some time to come. Thirdly, the Government should be looking at ways of keeping pace with the changing shape of the economy, balancing public health and economic priorities with the likelihood of more local lockdowns, for example. Part of the answer to that is a basic income scheme. The self-employed and job retention schemes do not work in tandem with the welfare system and therefore do not approach anything like a proper safety net. Many people have not been able to claim universal credit. Some have received no support whatever and the consequences are devastating, so much so that ExcludedUK has been working with the Samaritans on creating a dedicated helpline called Mind the Gap for those experiencing mental health problems. There is a simple and effective way to start to put things right and a universal basic income delivered via a welfare system that lifts everybody up would be a key cornerstone of that.



In conclusion, on Tuesday the Chancellor said he had

“not hesitated to act in creative and effective ways to support jobs and employment,”—[Official Report, 15 September 2020; Vol. 680, c. 160]—

and promised he would continue to do so. The self-employed and freelancers rightly want that creativity to apply to them as well. The Treasury has demonstrated time and again that it does not understand self-employment, so at the very least those of us standing up for the excluded are asking this again today: please will the Minister go back to the Treasury team and ask them to meet us so that at the very least they can understand what is at stake here? The stakes could not be higher: people’s businesses are being destroyed and their lives are being destroyed. That is not right and that is why so many Members want to speak in this debate.

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[Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas) on securing this debate on a very important issue. If the Conservative party is anything, it is the party of entrepreneurs, strivers and people who get out of bed in the morning to create wealth, which is one of the reasons I am a Conservative. I have also been freelance—self-employed—the past couple of years, and I know how precarious it is and how one may not know how much money is coming from one month to the other. When the coronavirus crisis struck, my heart went cold when I heard accounts from some of my constituents about the sudden 100% loss of income overnight.

As we have heard, a huge amount of support has been provided, through a range of different schemes. That has totalled some £280 billion, with quite a lot of it focused on self-employed people. The Treasury Committee, on which I serve, produced a report on those who are excluded—it was quoted earlier—for which we talked to a range of different groups. Many people have been in very difficult circumstances, and I do not wish to minimise that, but I will say—because we have heard so many Members speak from one side of the argument—that a lot of them did get some form of support. They might not have got the self-employment income support, but often they got other forms of support, such as VAT deferral or other tax deferral, or they did not have to pay business rates, or they received grants. There is also the backstop of universal credit. I totally accept that universal credit is not much money and that it is very difficult to live on, but everyone should have access to it.

The one big difference between the self-employed and those on the furlough scheme, which we debated earlier, is that the self-employed could continue to work. I know from conversations that I have had with constituents that many of them who are self-employed continued to work, particularly those in the online and digital sector, although I absolutely accept that if they do not have any work, clearly they cannot continue to work.

The other thing about all of this is that the more we think about the detail, the more complicated it gets. We heard the discussion about dividends, for example. Actually, there are so many different circumstances in which people get dividends from different forms of work, with company directors getting dividends from investment funds and so on. It means that we cannot have an automated system. The whole point about the SEIS scheme and the furlough scheme was that it could be done rapidly and at scale because it used data that already existed and was accessible by Government. We could not do that in this case without the equivalent of some sort of self-assessment scheme, with really detailed investigations into each individual’s circumstances, which would have taken six months or so to set up. The Government’s objective, quite rightly, was to get support to as many people as possible as quickly as possible, and they did that well.

Another aspect of paying oneself by dividends, which obviously people do for cash-flow reasons, it that they do not pay national insurance contributions, so they are paying less. It is very complicated, and the more we look into it, the more difficult it is. I join my right hon. and hon. Friends in urging the Government to ensure that we have a Budget for freelancers and entrepreneurs, and to make sure that they are looked after.

Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme

Anthony Browne Excerpts

Thursday 17th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) on securing this debate and my right hon. Friend the Chancellor on coming up with a policy so good that it gets a warm welcome from across the political spectrum. It is a delight to hear Labour and SNP Members praising Conservative party economic policy—a real triumph—but all good things come to an end. [Interruption.] I look forward to them praising the rest of the economic policies.

The proof is in the pudding. The latest Eurostat figures show that employment in the UK has dropped far less than in other European countries.

The second quarter this year versus the first quarter has seen a drop of 0.7%—that is half the drop in employment in Germany, one quarter the drop in France and one ninth the drop Ireland. We can demonstrably prove that we have been far more successful at preserving jobs in the UK.

Looking at the unemployment figures that we had just this week, there was a rise in unemployment, but it went from 3.9% to 4.1%. Most economic commentators believed that the rise in unemployment would be far greater. I very much welcome the fact that we have more strength in the labour market now than most people expected. Obviously, every job lost is bad news, and my heart goes out to anybody who has lost their job.

We have been hearing about the cliff edge, and there is a big question about how high that cliff edge is with 9.6 million people having been on furlough. Anecdotally, however, everyone I know who has been on furlough has now gone back to work. The latest figures from the ONS, which are from 15 August—over a month ago—show that only 11% of the workforce are on furlough. That is roughly 3 million people. If we look at the trajectory, we are probably now down to about 5%, with 1 million to 1.5 million still on furlough. I look forward to seeing the latest figures. We have another six weeks or so to go until the end of October, so it is not a cliff edge, but a tapering out. I very much welcome that, and again, that is tribute to the Chancellor’s policies and the flexibility, with employers being given nudges to get people back to work.

One of the most critical points is to understand the difference between protecting jobs, which is what the job retention scheme was about, and helping people find work at the end. There will be structural changes to the economy. The airline industry, for example, which the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Gavin Newlands) mentioned, will not be the same size—not next year, not the year after and not in three years’ time. What are we going to do for the people in the airline industry? Are we going to put them on the job retention scheme for ever? At some point, we have to move on, look forward and actually help people find jobs, and that is why I very much welcome the schemes that the Chancellor is focusing on now. Rather than paying people to stay at home and not work, we are providing incentives for employers, such as the kickstart scheme or the bonuses for apprenticeship, to help people who are out of work get back into work. That is the way forward.

Co-operative and Community Benefit Societies (Environmentally Sustainable Investment) Bill

Anthony Browne Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 11th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Ruth Edwards]

I certainly agree with my hon. Friend on that point, but they are subsidising those bills no more because, as he knows, the company has collapsed and is having to be rescued by British Gas. It has collapsed in financial ruin, and the result has been a huge economic and human toll, with tens of millions of taxpayers’ pounds lost—the current estimate is about £38 million—and 230 people will lose their jobs.

[Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

Another example, which hon. Members might not be aware of, is the Co-operative Bank, which was one of my members when I ran the British Bankers Association. It collapsed amid huge financial and governance problems and ended up being bought by hedge funds. In fact, the Co-operative Bank is no longer a co-operative at all, and its debt is issued on the London stock exchange. That is another example of where good intentions do not lead to good results if there is bad governance.

[Ruth Edwards]

I thank my hon. Friend for that example, which highlights why good intentions have to be underpinned by practical and well-thought-through proposals.

Finally, in January the Financial Conduct Authority put in place regulations prohibiting the promotion of functionally similar financial instruments—speculative versions of so-called mini-bonds—to public consumers. The reason for that was the collapse of several providers of such mini-bonds, in particular London Capital and Finance, for example, which ended up leaving 11,600 members of the public at risk of losing nearly £240 million in total.

In conclusion, although I completely back the concept of green investments and have backed strengthening the co-operative sector, I cannot back this Bill today because there are too many fundamental problems and uncertainties within it. The green and sustainable elements of it are not defined, and there are massive areas of risk for investors that have not been properly guarded against. As hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North (Ben Everitt) pointed out, the Bill also risks undermining the integrity of the co-operative model. These are not details that I feel can be ironed out in Committee, but fundamental problems, which is why I cannot support the Bill today.

Protection of Jobs and Businesses

Anthony Browne Excerpts

Wednesday 9th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Anneliese Dodds]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for raising that point. The Government promised local authorities that they would meet their calls to back-fill not just the spending that they have incurred during this period but the income that was lost. What do we have instead? We have a resiling from that promise. That is problematic because of the huge impact it will have on employment in different areas—local authority employment can be a critical part of many economies—but it is also an enormous issue for the economic development in those areas, where ultimately the lack of local leadership will be a huge problem. The Government need to hold to their promise in that regard.

[Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

The shadow Chancellor says that she wants to extend the furlough scheme, but the key question is: how long for? The Chancellor said when he announced it that it would end in October. If it is October, the shadow Chancellor says it should be November; if it is November, then she says December. If she wants a sector-specific scheme, when does it end—at the end of the crisis, as some of her colleagues have said? Is that when the virus is eradicated? What is the solution?

--- Later in debate ---

[Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I want to join my colleagues on the Government Benches and, indeed, the Opposition Benches in congratulating the Government on their generous and nimble support for industry in this economic crisis. It has been an extremely difficult time, but it would have been far worse if the Government had not intervened in the way that they have. As the trend is to give figures for our constituencies, I will tell the House that South Cambridgeshire has had 13,600 jobs furloughed—saved—and nearly £90 million in grants and loans to businesses. We also beat Warrington South, with 122,000 meals eaten out and enjoyed by people, including myself. I know from the emails and the talks I have had with businesses and pubs in my constituency that, for many of them, this support made the difference between them failing and thriving. Many of them are now looking forward to the future—we are not out of it yet, but people are a lot more positive.

It is a feature of crises that it is far more difficult politically to get out of them than to get into them, whether the lockdown restrictions or the economic support package. The Labour party has called for continued subsidies, but it will not say when those would end. That means that it is calling for subsidies without end, which means borrowing without end. I do not believe in borrowing without end, because we have to pay off the debt at some point, whether it is us, our children or our grandchildren.

[Miriam Cates]

None of us wants to see mass unemployment at the end of furlough scheme, but given that none of us knows how long this crisis and the restrictions will last, is it not better to shift our support from helping those who may otherwise lose their jobs to creating new jobs, taking advantage of the opportunities in our economy right now?

[Anthony Browne]

I absolutely agree—my hon. Friend has taken the words right out of my mouth. I believe, and the Conservative party believes, in sustainable national finances. Do the Opposition parties believe in that? If they do, they have to explain how they want to get there.

[Patricia Gibson]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Anthony Browne]

I will carry on.

We are at a time when we must look to the future, not try to preserve the past. The great Andrew Bailey, the new Governor of the Bank of England, said recently in an interview that the Chancellor is

“right to say we have to look forward now. I don’t think we should be locking the economy down in a state that it pre-existed in.”

The shape of the economy will change, as we have heard today. It will not be in the same shape in a few years as it is now. The companies and people working in the aviation sector face a very difficult time over the next few years. E-commerce, on the other hand, is thriving. We have seen airlines cutting jobs, but we have seen Amazon recruiting. Inner-city sandwich shops have been hit really hard and will be for some time as people carry on working from home. Supermarkets are thriving. Pret a Manger has cut 1,600 jobs, but Tesco has just announced that it is recruiting for 14,000 jobs.

The focus of Government should not be on “prolonging the inevitable”, as the chief economist of the Bank of England said. The focus of Government should be on helping with the transition, as my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Miriam Cates) said, by helping the people who are losing their jobs into the new jobs that are being created. We must ensure that short-term unemployment does not move into long-term unemployment and that when people come out of work, they have relevant skills, motivation and contacts in industry. As soon as people become long-term unemployed—after six months or one year—they lose motivation and contacts, and the likelihood that their unemployment will carry on for much longer increases. That is why the Government are right to focus on their plan for jobs, through measures such as the kick- start scheme, support for apprenticeships, increased training and advice from Jobcentre Plus. That is the right approach.

Finally, many Members have been praising the international comparisons. We heard earlier the list of countries that have already announced the ending of their furlough schemes. I like statistics, and I have been looking at the Eurostat website, which is very good but could be a bit more user-friendly. The UK’s employment figures from Q2 to Q1—the key employment figures—dropped by 0.7%. That is after a very long period, and every job lost is bad news. However, Germany’s employment figures in Q2 to Q1 this year dropped by 1.4%, twice as much as the UK. In Ireland, the employment rate dropped by 6.1%, nine times faster than in the UK. In France—there seems to be a liking for France on the Labour Benches—there was a 2.6% drop in employment from Q2 to Q1, four times the rate here. We do not have that much to learn from the French employment market ,and I really do not think we should start doing so now.

Finally—[Interruption]—I want to say that Treasury Ministers have made the right decisions at the right time and I am confident they will in the future.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. There is no “finally”. “Finally” has to come before the end of three minutes—I am sorry.

Stamp Duty Land Tax (Temporary Relief) Bill

Anthony Browne Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 13th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Anthony Browne (South Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I am on the advisory council for the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which I am about to quote, and back in 2012 I co-founded the HomeOwners Alliance, Britain’s only consumer group for homeowners, because I was alarmed by the prospects of the home ownership gap—the 5 million aspiring homeowners who cannot own their own home. We have done a lot of work promoting policies to help people get on to the housing ladder.

I was concerned about the home ownership gap because, as Opposition Members said, home ownership levels have declined. What they did not say was that home ownership levels went up almost every year for the past 100 years and stopped in the year 2000—three years after the new Labour Government came in. They then started declining for a decade or so. They are now going back up again. I commend the Government’s policies for increasing home ownership levels.

Various people on both sides of the House have mentioned the deposit barrier. It is a huge barrier for first-time buyers who are trying to save up a deposit. The reason banks have increased the deposit requirement and got rid of 95% loans is that house prices are falling, as the latest data shows. Therefore, if people take out a high-value mortgage, they end up in negative equity. That is why banks are legally required to do only affordable lending. The best way to help homeowners get high loan-to-value mortgages is to have a confidently stable or rising housing market, where there is no risk of negative equity. This measure will do that.

In my time at the HomeOwners Alliance over the past decade, I have done a lot of policy work on stamp duty and written loads of reports on it, including one back in 2012 or 2013 that argued for a differential stamp duty system for second home owners and property investors. There is absolutely no reason why they should benefit from the low stamp duty rates for first-time buyers and so on. I lobbied the Treasury, No. 10 and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, and I was delighted when they finally introduced it as the stamp duty premium for additional homes. I would not have introduced it in quite the way they did, but the policy has made a big difference.

Two months ago, I called on the Government to introduce a stamp duty holiday to kick-start the housing market, so naturally I am delighted that the Government have done it.

[Jesse Norman]

It was only you saying it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Anthony Browne]

Not at all; I am sure lots of people called for it. I am just showing that I am consistent in my views.

Stamp duty—SDLT—is one of the most unpopular taxes, and not just with homeowners and the public, but with economists. The Institute for Fiscal Studies—a very wise organisation—has called for stamp duty to be abolished outright, because it is one of the most economically inefficient taxes. It is always worth listening to the IFS. I serve on the Treasury Committee, and we took evidence last week from Nick Macpherson, the former permanent secretary at the Treasury. He said he really dislikes stamp duty because it is a transaction tax that reduces transactions, and it has a very bad impact on labour mobility and bungs up the whole labour market. He would certainly not be sad if it went.

We know that there is huge pent-up demand in the housing market. That is not just about Brexit uncertainty and all the missing transactions from the coronavirus crisis; there was pent-up demand beforehand, partly because stamp duty rates have been so high. Before the financial crisis, there were on average about 1.7 million transactions a year. In recent years, there have been about 1.2 million a year. We are about 30% below the pre-financial crisis average. A large part of that is because of stamp duty, although there are other reasons.

The housing market is very sensitive to changes in stamp duty. That is why Opposition Members said earlier, “Don’t speculate about stamp duty changes. Just get ahead and do it.” That is what the Government have done. That is why a cut in stamp duty is so effective in rapidly driving up activity in the market and releasing the animal spirit—the huge backlog of people who want to move are released to get on with it. As several of my hon. Friend have mentioned, we have already seen the number of transactions shoot up in the past few days, which is very much to be welcomed.

Several Members on both sides of the House have worried about the £3.8 billion in forgone revenue. I have a solution to that, which I will come to in a minute. However, I do not think the figure will be anywhere near £3.8 billion. That is just the forgone revenue from stamp duty that has been calculated by the Treasury. That is slightly unlikely because the whole stamp duty take last year was £4.5 billion just for primary residential homes, if we get rid of the additional premium.

We have heard about all the additional economic activity that goes along with housing transactions—the builders, the furniture makers, the removal companies, the lawyers and so on. All that is taxed at 20% VAT. On average, only about half the tax paid in a single housing transaction goes on stamp duty; the other half goes on all the associated economic activity through VAT to the Government. If we scrapped stamp duty outright but the number of transactions doubled, the revenue to the Government would be the same. It just comes not as stamp duty but as VAT.

However, that is not the proposal I was going to make to help my Treasury friends with the £3.8 billion. There is another £3.8 billion: the latest available figures show that the amount of money the Treasury made from the additional premium for second homes was also £3.8 billion, as it happens. That is made on a rate of 3% above the existing stamp duty. If we increased that 3% to 6%, there may be a slight decline in transactions, but basically we would raise another £3.8 billion. That is what I proposed a couple of months ago—that we should increase the rate for second home owners and property investors, and use that to cut stamp duty for people buying a home for what houses are for, which is to have a place to live in.

So I very much welcome this policy. I urge the Government to look at increasing the rate for second home owners, not now, when we are in the middle of the financial crisis, but when we get back a bit to normality. Let us make this a flat rate. There is no social or economic reason why people buying second homes or homes for investment should get discounted rates on lower-valued properties. This should be a flat rate, like VAT, where it is the same whatever the value of the transaction. Lastly, we should give strong consideration for this temporary cut in stamp duty to be made permanent.